In modern commerce, retailers and manufacturers distribute promotions, such as coupons or other advertisements for goods or services, in electronic form to consumers. Various technologies are available to control how consumers access and use these electronic promotions. For example, users may log in to a website with which they have registered to access and print a coupon. Retailers may deliver promotions through a variety of different digital delivery channels such as text messaging (e.g., short messaging service or “SMS”), software applications for mobile devices, electronic mail (“email”), social media delivery (e.g., through “Facebook”), and the like.
Generally speaking, there are two types of coupons: limited use and unlimited use. An unlimited use coupon is similar to a promotion code that any consumer can give to a retailer. The retailer accepts the promotion code an unlimited number of times from an unlimited number of consumers, so long as each consumer presenting the promotion code meets the promotional requirements.
Limited use coupons on the other hand, may not be used an unlimited number of times. A paper-based manufacturer's coupon is an example of a coupon that is intended to be limited use. Only one consumer can use the coupon only one time, because the consumer hands over the coupon to a retailer in order to use it. With digital coupons, one-time use digital coupons have become more popular because they limit the liability of the coupon issuer in much the same way as paper coupons, but they are much easier and less expensive to create and distribute than paper coupons.
With today's technologies, merchants such as retailers typically deliver one coupon to a given consumer via each delivery channel. Each coupon that is delivered to a consumer generally is treated within any coupon delivery system as a different one-time use coupon. As a result, when delivering one-time use coupons, a retailer generally delivers a given coupon to a consumer via one of the multiple preferred delivery channels for which the retailer has information for that consumer. The retailer typically does not deliver a coupon via more than one channel so that a given consumer does not receive more than one instance of a redeemable coupon, so as to limit the coupon issuer's liability. Should the retailer decide to deliver a different one-time use coupon to a consumer via each preferred delivery channel, the retailer would be increasing their potential coupon liability.
To ensure that a coupon is delivered once to a consumer, some retailers have consumers log-in to a central server to access their coupons each time they need to access a coupon. For example, the consumer might click a link in an email and then be prompted to sign-in to see their coupons. As another example, a consumer's smartphone application might have consumers login to their accounts to see their coupons.
Such techniques for coupon delivery can create a number of consumer experience problems. For example, the consumer may be required to log in each time prior to viewing a coupon or determining its status. Logging in can take time, hold up checkout lines, and be inconvenient if the consumer has forgotten their username or password. Similarly, it may be possible for a consumer to automatically see their coupons when they launch a smartphone application because they are already logged in, but they will not be able to easily view their coupons via email and may not know how to do so.